The Gypsy Morph

FOURTEEN

ANGEL PEREZ sat in an old rocker on the cottage porch and stared out into the screen of trees that masked the sluggish flow of the Columbia River. It was midday, the heat penetrating even the thick canopy of the forest. Only the breezes off the river kept it cool, but today they were sporadic and slight. She was tired of the heat, the cottage, the inactivity, and the long days and longer nights. Mostly, though, she was tired of not knowing what was happening to those who had left her behind.

She exhaled wearily, thinking of it. Her recovery had been slow, if steady. She had been with Larkin Quill for more than a week now, sleeping most of the time at first, and then dozing frequently after that until she’d had enough of sleep and healing and the corner on her recovery had been turned. Her pain from her wounds had been harsh but bearable. Her magic had helped her to mend as an ordinary person could not have, restoring her health so quickly that even Larkin Quill, who had seen much of injuries and recoveries in his time, was surprised.

“You would be laid up for another month, were you a normal young lady,” he had declared that very morning. “I thought I knew something about healing, but you could teach me a few things.”

Well, she could if she understood how it worked, but she didn’t. She had always healed quickly since becoming a Knight of the Word, the process enhanced and quickened by her magic, by her being who and what she was. There was no mystery to it. It was necessary that she heal swiftly if she was to survive. It was required of those who were constantly in danger.

Or all Knights of the Word.

She wondered how badly you had to be damaged before even the magic couldn’t save you. She thought she had reached that point on the slopes of Syrring Rise, that the combination of blood loss and cold was enough to finish her. She had crawled through inky darkness and howling wind in search of a cavern entrance she could not see, and she was certain she was going to die. She had come close, she thought. She had come as close as she could without crossing over.

But here she was, still alive, her wounds healed, her strength mostly back. A miracle.

There was movement in the cottage, and Larkin Quill stepped onto the porch beside her, his milky gaze fixed and unresponsive, but his smile warm.

“You seem much better,” he said.

How he could tell she would never know. She was constantly amazed at how he was able to discern so much of what would normally require sight. He was better at it than she was, she believed. He had that gift or skill or whatever it was that enabled him to sort things out with his other senses. She had seen him do it over and over since she had arrived, in small but no less incredible ways.

“I am better,” she agreed. “Thanks to you.”

His lean, sharp features crinkled with the appearance of his self–deprecating smile. “I supplied the small kindnesses and little medicines, but mostly you did this yourself. You and your magic, Mistress Knight of the Word.”

She shrugged. “Some of each played a part, I imagine. What matters is that I am better.”

“Indeed. Now we need to think about getting on with things. It’s been a week, and Sim and Kirisin aren’t back. I don’t know if that means anything, but we should assume the worst for purposes of your own situation. What do you want to do?”

Angel didn’t hesitate. “Go after them.”

“Go after them?” Larkin shook his head. “No, that’s a bad idea. You aren’t strong enough for that yet. Even if you think so, you aren’t. You’d have to go afoot. It’s a long way to another balloon, even if you could get there, and neither you nor I can fly it.” He smiled. “We have to be patient, Angel. We have to wait on them.”

“What if waiting on them is not what’s needed?”

He shrugged. “Give me your second choice. What else would you do with yourself while waiting?”

She thought a minute. “I would find Helen Rice and the children I left in her keeping when I came in search of the Elves. They are supposed to be somewhere on the Columbia … sorry, somewhere on Redonnelin Deep.”

“And so they are,” he said. His quirky smile was back. “They are a dozen miles upriver and have been for as long as three weeks. More than two thousand of them, by my count.” He didn’t explain how he had managed that; he just shrugged. “I can take you there, then come back and wait.”

“If I agree to that,” she said carefully, locking eyes with him as if he could see–and perhaps, in a way, he could–the intensity mirrored there, even in that blank gaze, “then you must promise you will bring Sim and Kirisin to me at the camp or come to get me if you discover they cannot reach us without help.”

He nodded. “Very well, I give you my word. You should be strong enough by then.” His brow furrowed. “Now, however, I have my doubts even about the short hike you propose. We might need to see how far you can walk before we set out. You haven’t tested yourself yet.” He gestured toward the river. “Want to give it a try?”

They set out along the riverbank, picking their way over fallen logs and roots, following the flow downstream with the sunlight arcing over their shoulders. Angel had taken short walks, but only close by the cabin and not too far out of sight. This day, it seemed, Larkin Quill intended to go a good deal farther. She took her time following him, noting how smoothly and easily he made his way through the tangle of vegetation, how effortless he made it seem. She carried water and drank from the skin often, measuring her pace, gauging her strength, careful with everything. She carried, as well, the black, rune–carved staff of her office, its smooth wood comforting, its presence reassuring. The day was hot, but the breezes that blew off the water kept them cool as they walked.

“I think you saved them,” he said suddenly at one point. “Simralin and her brother, up there on Syrring Rise. They didn’t say it, but that was the impression I got.”

“They saved me,” she said.

“A good partnership, then.” He kept walking steadily ahead and didn’t look back at her. “Between humans and Elves. A good sign of what might lie ahead, don’t you think?”

“I hope so. If there’s no cooperation, there’s no survival. We’ll all be destroyed by whatever’s coming.”

“Or by whatever comes after,” he added. “It never ends, really, does it? You overcome one obstacle, one evil, one enemy, and another steps into the unoccupied space. I think about that. We persevere, but it isn’t ever really over for us. Not even for those who don’t want any part of it. The Elves are a perfect example. They want no part of the human world, no part of its evils, of the demons and once–men and all the rest. They just want to be left alone, and so they isolate themselves and stick their heads in the ground so they won’t be seen.” He made a vague gesture. “You can see where it’s gotten them.”

“They seem to be doing something now,” she observed.

“That’s so,” he agreed. He glanced back. “Too little, too late, perhaps? Time will tell.”

They had gone about three miles when he stopped, looked around, and moved into the shadow of a small cluster of conifers that fringed the mudflats they had passed onto. He found what was left of the trunk of a fallen tree and sat down.

She moved over and sat beside him. “I’m winded.”

“You’ve done well. I didn’t think you would get this far without resting.” He reached over and patted her leg affectionately. “I think you’re ready to make the trip upriver to your friends. We’ll go in the morning.”

“I would like that, Larkin.” She gave him a genuinely warm smile, not caring that he couldn’t see it. “You’ve done a lot for me, mi amigo. You took risks for me when you didn’t have to. You’ve been a good friend.”

Larkin laughed. “Did I? What was I thinking?”

She laughed with him, and then she rose and stood looking off into the distance, across the river to the cliffs beyond. “I need to try something,” she said quietly. She glanced back at him. “I need to see if I can summon the magic.”

He looked puzzled. “Why wouldn’t you be able to?”

“I don’t know. I just know I have to be sure.” She hesitated. “I lost something back on the mountain. My life, almost, but something more, too. Something of myself. It’s hard to explain, but I won’t feel complete until I know I have the magic to command. I won’t feel whole.”

He brushed idly at his shock of wild black hair. “And how will you test it?”

“I only need to make certain I can summon it. It won’t take a moment.”

He didn’t say anything further, so she stepped away from him and faced off into the distance, holding the staff before her, both hands gripping its smooth surface, her fingers working slowly over the indentations of the runes. The staff was her life, the verification of who she was and what she did. She needed to know that her close brush with death hadn’t robbed her of its power, hadn’t leached it away. She knew she was probably being foolish, that such a thing couldn’t happen. But her confidence was diminished, and she needed to strengthen it anew.

She reached down inside herself and called the magic to her, joining with the staff, feeling it become a part of her.

The runes began to glow instantly, bright red beneath her fingers, and the magic flared from the staff in a soft, white glow that widened against the dappled shadows cast by the branches of the trees. She felt a surge of relief, vindication of her need. The magic was there and it was hers. She was still a Knight of the Word.

She let it fade quickly, exhaled sharply, and turned back to Larkin Quill.

“Are you reassured?” the Elf asked with a wry smile. “Doubts chased back into the dark corners, everything sunny and bright?”

“Everything sunny and bright,” she replied.

Not FIVE MILES DISTANT, close by the waters of the Columbia, the Klee stiffened in recognition. It stood where it was for a long moment, as if become a stone carving, its huge, shaggy bulk blocking the way forward on the narrow trail it followed, bits of debris broken off by its cumbersome passage littering the ground behind it. A deep quiet settled in all around it, a widening arc of silence that reached well beyond what it could see with its weakened eyes, a caution that reflected both the nature and extent of the danger its presence posed.

When the moment ended, it turned slightly in the direction of the magic that had attracted its attention, magic generated by a creature that it sensed instinctively was not a demon. Its instincts told it that the magic was of a foreign nature, of a different form. The Klee was not overly bright, but it was deeply attuned to and capable of differentiating among forms of magic. It could not see well, but it could hear and taste and smell what other creatures would simply overlook. It tested the air now, and, even as far away as it was, it caught a whiff of what had distracted it from its search.

A whiff, it concluded, of what it might be searching for.

It shambled down to the riverbank and began plodding upstream toward the magic’s source. It advanced steadily for the better part of an hour, a bulky, almost featureless form passing through a mix of sunlight and shadows, a monster set loose. It was neither fast nor supple, but steady and dogged. once it began a search, it would not quit. That was its value. The old man in the gray cloak and slouch hat relied on it to do what no other demon could–to track a scent from a scrap of cloth or a single footprint or even a momentary vision. A peculiar mix of bloodlust and hunger drove it, guided it, and infused it with purpose. The Klee was a special breed of demon, one that came along only now and then. Its makeup was unusual enough that a demon less astute than the old man might not recognize its talent. Repulsive and terrifying, a monster in both appearance and behavior, it did not invite close examination.

To make any use of it, you had to be able to embrace an unspeakable evil, and the old man had.

The Klee didn’t care what others thought of it. It only cared that its urges and needs were given an outlet. on this occasion, the old man had given it what it craved most–an uncomplicated directive to kill everything it encountered. The Klee did not understand the reasons for this or even care to discover them. It understood instinctively that the old man was worried, something that rarely happened, and required of the Klee that it do whatever was necessary to make that worry disappear. There would be no restraints, no limits, and no recriminations for what happened. It was the Klee’s favorite kind of work. The Klee was to kill the magic user and everything and everyone that stood in the way of its doing so.

Easy enough when you were the most dangerous creature alive. Easy enough when you knew you had never failed.

The Klee walked until it reached the spot where the magic had been expended. The taste and smell of it were still present, stronger here, pungent with power, a shadowy residue that hung on the air like smoke. The Klee stood where it was for a long time, drinking it in, as if it were a creature parched with thirst and the residue fresh, clean water. Its huge bulk shifted slightly as it tested the air over and over.

Then it saw the footprints embedded in the soft mud of the riverbank.

Without a second thought, it began to follow.

Nightfall brought A cooling in the air and fresh solitude to the forest bordering the Columbia. The walk back had tired Angel sufficiently that she had fallen asleep almost immediately on her return and not awakened again until Larkin told her that dinner was waiting. Sitting on his porch, looking out into the failing light cast across the surface of the river by the setting sun, she worked her way slowly through her meal, washing it down with cold springwater, and thinking ahead to the trip upriver to where the children were encamped. She ate in silence, and Larkin let her be. Maybe he sensed that she preferred it that way. Maybe he just wasn’t feeling talkative himself. He sat across from her, his blank gaze fixed, his face expressionless.

When her dinner was finished, she went out back of the cottage to where the waterfall provided a makeshift shower and washed the day’s grime and sweat from her body. She closed her eyes and let the water splash over her, leaving her skin alive and so cold that it tingled.

Alive, she thought, speaking the word silently. One word. A word that could mean so much.

She had finished washing and drying and was wrapped in her towel and standing in the tiny room Larkin had provided for her when the Elven Tracker appeared suddenly beside her, materialized as silently as a wraith returned from the dead.

He touched his finger to his lips, warning her not to speak. He touched his clothes, telling her to dress.

She stared at him, and then dropped the towel and quickly slipped into the pants and tunic and boots he had provided her. All the while, Larkin stood as if poised to flee at a moment’s notice, his body still, but his head turning this way and that. His black hair, spiky and stiff, seemed a conduit for his fear. Angel felt it radiating off him and taking up residence in her, sharp–edged and roiling.

He stepped forward cautiously as she pulled on the second boot and straightened. “Something is out there,” he whispered, his words so soft that Angel could barely make them out. “A very dangerous something that …”

In that same instant, she saw the feeders, crowding through the doorway behind him, lithe and shadowy. “Larkin!” she hissed.

The floor exploded beneath him, and a huge, mud–clotted arm fastened on his ankle and pulled his entire leg into the hole. He went down in a heap, arms flying out from his sides, head thrown back. A second arm, as massive and encrusted as the first, reached up, tearing apart more of the already splintered floorboards. Angel barely had time to grasp what was happening before she heard Larkin Quill’s neck snap and watched his lifeless body cast aside as the feeders, pouring through the doorway now, swarmed over him in a blanket of darkness.

It happened so fast that for an instant she couldn’t quite believe it had happened at all. One moment Larkin had been standing there, poised to run, mouth open to speak, and in the next the life was ripped from him with less thought than might have been given to brushing aside a scattering of leaves.

Dead, just like that.

She stared in disbelief. It shouldn’t have happened. Perhaps it was the familiarity of its smell that had prevented Larkin, who otherwise sensed so much, from detecting it—a raw earthen stench that permeated his surroundings, blending with the ground itself, infused with the damp and decay of plants sinking back into the mire. Perhaps it was something in the creature’s makeup, a composition the likes of which Larkin had not encountered before and could not identify.

She felt a wave of recrimination wash over her. It shouldn’t have happened. If she’d been holding on to her staff, it wouldn’t have. Its runes would have flared up in warning, and she would have known to act, would have had time to do something. If she hadn’t set the staff down to wash, if she’d been paying better attention …

Her mind spun with a litany of missed opportunities, of possibilities lost, of regrets and self–accusation, all in the passing of a few horrific seconds as she stood rooted in place.

Then the feeders, done with Larkin, turned toward her.

Just in time, she broke free of her shock. She was leaping for her staff when the monster that had killed the Elven Tracker heaved up through the damaged floorboards, shattering them completely, opening a gaping hole into the crawl space it had used to creep up on them undetected. She avoided its attempt to grab her legs and drag her down, vaulting past it to snatch up her staff and wheel back in response to the attack. Summoning the magic in a blur of white fire, she sent it exploding into the monster. But her attacker shrugged off the blow as if it were nothing and began tearing at the floorboards with its huge hands. The boards split and heaved upward, knocking Angel back against the cottage wall. She stayed on her feet, desperate to keep the thing at bay. She attacked again, the magic lancing out in a sharp thrust. Again the monster shrugged it off. But this time it came up out of the hole, eight feet tall and massive, and started toward her.

She backed quickly from the room, through the door and into the grounds and the trees beyond, her staff held protectively before her. She wheeled left and right, searching for it, trying to catch the sound of its movement, readying for the next attack. Her breathing was harsh and raw, and tears stung her eyes. She felt the world tilt beneath her feet, and she grew light–headed.

But the monster had disappeared, taking the feeders with it.

She took a deep breath, steadying herself. She didn’t understand, but she couldn’t afford to take time to try to do so. She backed up against a massive old tree. When it came for her, she would see it or hear it. She waited, staff poised, magic at her fingertips, body tensed to lunge in whatever direction the circumstances required.

But nothing happened.

She waited as long as she could stand, and then she worked her way around to the front of the cottage. The monster’s trail was clearly marked from where it had emerged from the crawl space, a series of deep prints and scattered debris. She followed it with her eyes until she lost sight of it at the water’s edge. She tracked it then, moving slowly, cautiously to the riverbank.

Far out in the water, a dark shapeless bulk surged through the waters of the Columbia, heaving its way north toward the far bank.

She stood looking after it. Had it really been a demon? She couldn’t be sure, but she thought so. If that’s what it was, it would know she was a Knight of the Word. So why hadn’t it come after her? Why had it killed Larkin, but let her be? Why had it chosen to leave?

Had she frightened it? Had her magic been more effective than it seemed?

The unanswered questions floated through her mind like the ghosts of the dead.

When SHE HAD DETERMINED for certain that the monster was gone and not coming back, she went into the cabin, hoisted Larkin Quill over her shoulder, and carried him out into the open air, back into the woods below the cliffs. When she found a patch of high ground, she laid him down and went back for a shovel. It took less than an hour to dig the hole and bury him, and when she was done she stood over him for a long time, remembering how much she had liked and admired him. She tried to think good thoughts and not bad, tried to think of him alive and not dead. She wished Simralin, who had been so close to him, could have been there to share the moment. Simralin would never have a chance to grieve over his body. She would never have a chance to say good–bye. Angel was sorry for this, but it couldn’t be helped.

She said a few words in Spanish, soft words that she remembered Johnny saying over the body of a boy he had liked and lost. Life was uncertain. Death was forever.

When she was finished, she packed a sack with water and food, closed up the cottage for the last time, and set out upriver to find the children and Helen Rice.